haunted || l.h.

26

When Luke and I got to school he quickly scooped my hand up in his and laced our fingers together. I was caught slightly off guard since he's never done this before at school, and because I just didn't expect him to want anyone to know about whatever we were.

"What are you doing?" I asked and pulled my hand out of his. He got a confused look on his face and just looked at me for a second before he responded.

"Well I was holding your hand." He said in a duh tone.

"Yeah but why here?" I asked nervously and looked up at him.

"Because I like holding your hand. I'm confused what's going on?" He asked and looked at me with an even more confused look on his face.

"Nothing." I said and went to walk towards the entrance of our school.

"Paisley what's going on?" He asked and followed me towards the door.

"I just didn't expect you to want to hold my hand here." I said and stopped walking before turning to look at him.

"What- P I want to hold your hand everywhere." He said with a chuckle and held my hand again while I just shrugged.

"I'm not ashamed of you Paisley." He said matter of factly as we walked up the stairs towards the door of the school.

"You should be." I said softly and looked down at the floor as we walked.

"You think I should be, but there's no way that I'll ever be ashamed of you. You don't realize how lovely and amazing you really are, but I'll show you." He said and squeezed my hand. I felt him look down at me as he spoke but I didn't dare look up at him.

"Look at me Pais." He said a few seconds later and stopped us in front of my first class. I let out a heavy sigh as I looked at him with an expectant look.

"I like you because you're you, I'm not ashamed of you and I don't want you to be ashamed of you." He said and leaned a little closer to me to place a kiss on my cheek.

"Okay." I said softly and couldn't help but smile a little.

"I wanna see that smile later." He said with a smile and pecked my cheek again.

"Okay but I have to go now." I said softly and gently pushed him out of the way.

"Have fun babe." He said and squeezed my hand before letting me go to class.

///

After all of my classes today Caroline led me over to the baseball field where the boys were practicing. Apparently she stayed because Michael took her to school today, and she said she wanted to hang out with me.

The two of us sat on the bleachers near the field while they practiced in the warm weather. I honestly knew nothing about baseball so Caroline had to explain it all to me.

I liked watching Luke play. He played with purpose and he really focused on the game, even if it was just practice. It was attractive watching him play. I can't exactly explain it but just watching him play and take this game so seriously was extremely attractive. Besides, he did look really good in his practice uniform.

"So have you told Luke that you like him?" Caroline asked while the two of us sat down on the bleachers.

"Well... I haven't exactly said the words, but I think he knows." I said and rested my elbows on my knees.

"Why do you think he knows?" She asked curiously.

"Well he kissed me this morning, and I kissed back so I feel like that's a dead giveaway. We're just different now and I know that's because I know I like him, and it's a good different. We're closer and I can tell, I'm just hoping he can too." I said and watched a huge smile appear on her face.

"He kissed you?" She squealed and jumped for joy in her seat.

"I'm not sure if he would've if I didn't tell him he could honestly." I said and smiled a little.

"He's a gentleman like that. Did anything else happen?" She asked with a slightly raised eyebrow.

"Well I had a bad dream last night so I went to his room. He helped me calm down and fall back to sleep, and then he woke me up this morning and I somehow stayed close to him the whole night. I really really like him Caroline, and it's really really scary but I know that I need him. I need him and that's what makes this even scarier. He's the only person that I feel comfortable with touching me in any sort of way. He's the only person that really knows me and can understand me and can make me feel safe and comfortable. He saved me, and I mean that quite literally." I said and kept looking between her and the field where Luke was stood at the pitchers mound.

"He needs you too Paisley. You keep him grounded, humble, calm, collected, focused, and most importantly you keep him himself. He's lost himself a few times in the past few years due to a number of different-and now irrelevant-things. He was going through some hard and stressful stuff before he met you, but once he did he immediately forgot about all of that stuff. He's been nothing but happy since he met you, even if trying to get you to like him stressed him out he did like the chase. He's not used to the chase and the excitement of it but once he got a taste of it he couldn't stop. He really really likes you too Paisley, and that's coming from one of his best friends." She said which kind of made my heart burst and then melt in my chest. Something about one of his best friends saying all of this stuff to me really said a lot and just proved to me that he really did care about me.

"I care about him a lot. I don't know him as well as he knows me, but I want to." I said while she nodded her head.

"He's hard to crack open sometimes so that doesn't surprise me. But we all know he cares about you so he'll open up more if you just make the effort with him. Effort is important to him, that's why he tried so hard with you." She said while I just nodded and took in that information.